The Gambia: The Economic Plunder is a Family Affair

By Mathew K. Jallow, Associate Editor

Afang Ibilis Jammeh and the wife, Zainab

If you lived in the 70s, and had some interest and understanding of international politics, perhaps one name might stand out among a colorful list of divas, doyens and devils: Mrs. Imelda Marcus. Doesn’t sound familiar? Here is a hint. Imelda was the wife of Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcus. Still clueless; huh? Allow me walk you back through memory lane, to a turbulent era of murderous dictators, clueless emperors and psychotic autocrats. The Soviets and Chinese were etching to spread their brand of socialism and communism around the world, but America was equally determined to stop them at whatever cost. In that combustible political and ideological never-land, the causalities abounded, however, a loosely knit group of dictators found their neutral ideological vacuum and proceeded to create a political niche which they exploited for all it was worth. At that time of political puritanism and ideological demagoguery, the least thing on Americans’ political minds was muddying the waters and driving their allied dictators into the waiting arms of their Soviets antagonists. And so, America nurtured its own political pariahs; dictators whose survival was premised on American indifference. Philippine’s Marcus came of age at the height of that caustic era of political partisanship and infernal ideological struggles, and proceeded to perfect the art of political corruption and elevated it to an entirely new level of banality. Yet ironically though, it was not Marcus himself who made the headlines in the news; it was his wife, Imelda, but for pernicious reasons too, might I add. Imelda to the Philippine people was the antichrist incarnate; a woman whose soullessness and cold-hearted demeanor was the antithesis to instinctive motherhood. Imelda’s ineffable lust for materialism created the aura of greed that became the signature of her life’s worth. Her heart stopping shopping sprees to New York, Paris and Rome’s exclusive boutiques were legendary; matched by fainthearted contemptuousness for the commoners in her native country, which was at once petrifying and frigidly disheartening. But, Imelda Marcus’s feature in this story is merely symbolic; exemplify a vulgar disposition and greed so close to home; our home.

Anyone who has followed the sheltered life of Gambia’s First Lady, Zainab Jammeh may discern a systemic pervasion of modesty and royal taste for distinction and exclusivity. In a peculiar sort of way, her standout beauty has an evilness to it that is reminisce of Imelda Marcus. In fact, the two have more in common than meets the eye; quite beauty, glamour and angelic façade behind which lurks a calculated quack whose marauding of Gambia’s national coffers is the ample definition of irreverence and godlessness. Yet, after so many years, so little is known about Gambia’s First Lady and the only standout moments of her life are punctuations of lavishness that embody her detachment from our Gambian reality. In the absence of any knowledge of her biography, First Lady Zainab Jammeh’s deviant and intermittent overseas shopping forays are the escapades by which she will forever be defined in the eyes of Gambians. She commands the calmness of a deity, and the poetic beauty of a Fulani woman; qualities that strangely exude deadliness that is anything but Fulani-like. Given that Zainab is playing the role of a medieval spouse to the letter, it is hard, if not impossible; to gauge how much influence she has over her husband, if any. However, her seeming detachment from everyday Gambian life almost elevates her to the level of other legendary First Ladies, who made history for the wrong reasons; former Romanian dictator’s spouse; Mrs. Nicolae Ceausescu, the Czar Nicolas of Russia’s wife and a slew of other power hunting first ladies. In some ways, there is a fatal attraction about Zeinab that seems to complement the meanness and the savagery of her husband Yahya Jammeh, a savagery, which makes even her expensive lifestyle look as good as autumn cupcakes. Mrs. Jammeh has lived in our country now for so many years, still the nuances one can glean from her actions suggest a person who seems out of place in our country despite her well orchestrated public functions; which at their very foundation are mere symbolisms lacking in substantive value. Zeinab Jammeh’s recent Disneyland visit with her children and the total expense costs of her holiday to the United States opens a window to her stubborn disregard for the sensibility of average Gambians suffering under the weight of her husband’s narcissistic and apocalyptic dictatorship. It is my held view that Zeinab Jammeh is the quintessential gold digger, for had Yahya Jammeh not been in the position he is in, she never would have married him. It is that plain. It is that simple.

In spite of her looks, Zeinab Jammeh has an aura of stuffiness percolating around her; yet it is her husband’s boorish and vacuous personality that is leading our country on the road to perdition. But, being her husband’s other half, she too must take responsibility for her insensitivity and reckless wastefulness. Her husband’s behavior, of course, is out of this world, for there is no better way to describe what Jammeh is doing to our country. In his article yesterday, Demba Jawo succinctly articulated the fantasy world Yahya Jammeh is building around his persona, but if the characteristic behaviors of past dictators are to go by, soon we will be seeing Jammeh’s entire family on billboards all around our country. For a whole country to be reduced to a fiefdom of one individual and not have its citizens rise up and incinerate the enabling institutions, and arrest its individuals, is the ultimate mark of cowardice. Ours is a nation caught in a desolate political wilderness; held captive between the grinding madness of an individual and the paralyzing subservience to a lone dictator. In which other countries on earth are the population compelled to work as slave laborers on their so-called president, apart from Gambia. The use of government workers to offer free labor on Jammeh’s farms is a Constitutional offence, because it tantamount the abuse of official power. Here in Wisconsin, Scott Jensen, a Republican speaker of the National Assembly spend several years in prison for using state workers for private jobs at his home. Similarly, Chuck Chvala, the democratic minority leader spent some time in prison for merely using state stationery for campaign purposes for the democratic party of Wisconsin. Today, more than a quarter of the Casamance Jola population has emigrated to The Gambia, and it is these and their relatives across our Casamance border, Jammeh is feeding with produce from hundreds of farms cultivated for him by poor villagers and civil servants press into gang labor by Yahya Jammeh. Anyone who has any doubt the way our countrymen are being coerced and manipulated by Jammeh and his family, need read Demba Jawo’s article to come to their senses. With landmarks across our country named after every member of his family, it is only a matter of time before Jammeh gives himself the power to abolish our Constitution and jettison the laws of the land. Judging from history, Zeinab Jammeh and her children will be there to cheer him on. For like it or not, soon the cannibalization of our country will be a family affair. I bet ya.